MessageThe unity of the churches, as an expression of reconciliation, is integral to the message of good news in Christ.

Sermon

A couple of decades or so ago, passages like tonight’s gospel
reading prompted many guilt-stirring sermons, and not that many decades
before that, they probably prompted more arrogant and belligerent
sermons. Tonight’s passage comes from the account in John’s
gospel of the prayer Jesus prayed with and for his followers at the
last supper, the night before his execution. And one of the themes of
the prayer - especially prominent in this extract - is a prayer for the
unity of the Church. “I ask that they - not only these here but
also those who will later join them - may all be one... As you, Father,
are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us ... that they may be
one, as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become
completely one.”

Such a passage is, of course, a favourite of the ecumenical movement;
the movement whose aim is the reconciliation and reunification of the
various Christian denominations. A few decades back when the ecumenical
movement was really on the boil, a passage like this would often
provoke a fiery sermon denouncing denominational divides and
hostilities, and urging people to get out of their denominational
ghettos and meet and befriend the congregations of other churches. A
good guilt-laying rant could usually ensure a reasonable turn-out for
the next ecumenical bible study or combined service of the local
churches.

In our neighbourhood, as in many others, the ecumenical movement has
lost much of its steam and the number of combined services has fallen
away. Why? Well, I reckon one of the reasons is that there is not so
much guilt around the issue anymore, and therefore guilt can’t be
manipulated to motive action. And the reason there is not so much guilt
around is because our earlier endeavours were largely successful.
Catholics and Protestants are not spitting at each other or throwing
rocks at each other in the streets. Even Northern Ireland is achieving
a measure of real peace. People may not know the folks from other
congregations well, but they are mostly not hostile or suspicious
towards them any more. At the grassroots level, we recognise and even
celebrate our diversity, but we would have no qualms about
acknowledging that we are all one body in Christ and even sharing
communion with one another around one Table. In fact, in any given
congregation, and ours is a case in point, it is now quite common to
find that the people gathered come originally from a wide variety of
denominational backgrounds. We are comfortable enough with one another
to swap easily between traditions. That’s all good.

Back in the bad old days before the successes of the ecumenical
movement, the approach to a passage like this one would have been quite
different. Preachers would go one of two ways. The uglier of the two
was to assert that the true Church could be identified with one
particular denomination (or in extreme cases even one particular
congregation), and therefore the preacher could maintain that the
Christian unity which Christ prayed for - the unity which mirrored the
unity that exists within God - is in fact a visible reality in this one
true Church. Such an approach was, of course, hostile to ecumenical
endeavours, because it saw them as seeking to compromise the one true
Church by mingling it with pagans and heretics, with the false church.

The more benign, but in some ways almost as tragic, approach was
popular among Protestants. This approach was to develop the idea of the
invisible true Church. Supposedly, the true Church, the true body of
Christ, is a spiritual reality, in Christ, and is therefore not
threatened by the visible disunity of the Church’s earthly
institutions. We might not be able to see its unity, but Christ can,
and that’s what matters. It is one, whether we can see it or not.

Now at one level this is true enough. And at that level it is also
quite important. That understanding allows us to recognise our unity
with those in Christ’s church who are divided from us by the
centuries. Visible unity with those who live in different times and
places is impossible, but we are one in Christ, in his church that
transcends all times and places. And it is also probably the case that
this idea of an invisible unity is part of what allows the ecumenical
comfort that now exists at the grassroots level. We ordinary disciples
are comfortable with each other because we recognise and honour a unity
that transcends the institutional disunity of our denominational
hierarchies. We have a sense of the invisible true Church and our
oneness in it.

However, the concept of the true invisible Church has also had some
tragic side effects and I’m not sure that we wouldn’t
nearly be better off without it. You see, what it has done is provide
an excuse for the visible disunity of the Church and thereby taken much
of the edge off the craving to do something about it. It has become an
obstacle to Church unity. If the Church really is united, and we just
can’t see it, then there is little incentive to strive for
greater unity. But, in fact, that is much the same logic as the old
heresy that said that because I have been justified in Christ -
declared forgiven and newly made righteous - then it doesn’t
really matter what I do in my bodily reality anymore, because my
righteousness is spiritual, invisible, and eternally secure. Even if I
am violent and sleazy and callous and greedy, there is no problem
because I have a true righteousness that is spiritual and invisible but
obvious to God. Now at the individual level, we can all recognise that
as being a heresy, and as playing God for a sucker. The concept of the
invisible reality is okay in so far as it points to something bigger
than the visible reality, but it does not make up for a visible reality
that directly contradicts it. The visible and invisible realities
cannot be pulling in opposite directions.

We cannot use this impressive spiritual sounding concept of the
invisible true Church to explain away our visible disunity. The
continuing disunity of the churches is a festering sin; it is a
grievous wound inflicted on the physical body of Jesus Christ by his
own people. True, we have come a long way, especially at the grassroots
level, but there is still a long way to go, especially at the
institutional level. I’m not one who thinks that the formal
unification of church hierarchies and administrations is necessary. But
what is necessary to heal the wound and make our unity visible is the
full recognition of one another’s baptisms, one another’s
celebrations of the Eucharist, and one another’s pastoral
ministers. We are closest to this goal on baptism, although I’m
sorry to say that on that one, we Baptists remain one of the lingering
offenders. It is probably fair to say that we have won the argument on
what sort of baptismal practices should be considered normative, but we
have been one of the the most legalistic and ungracious in our attitude
to any practice differing from the norm.

On Eucharistic hospitality and recognition of ministers, we are still a
long way from home, and the wounds are still deep, and in some areas,
deepening. Many Christian churches still will not recognise the
validity of a celebration of the Lord’s Table that is presided
over by the ministers and congregations of other denominations. Some
denominations actively forbid their people from participating in the
celebration of the Eucharist in churches other than their own. Some
will not offer the bread and wine to anyone who is not a member of
their own denominational tradition. Such ungracious and inhospitable
behaviour can never be disguised by any nice theory about invisible
unity. It is active disunity and as such it is a spit in the face of
the Jesus who prayed that we might be one as he and the Father are one.
It is a conscious flouting of his revealed will. It is gross sin, and
part of what is so gross about it is that this disunity is
perpetuating, right in the heart of the Church, the sort of
scapegoating and victimising that saw Jesus killed in the first place.
When we deny our unity, and make our side right and the other side evil
and expendable, then we have done to Jesus exactly what the Pharisees
and Sadducees and Herodians and Romans did to him. We have sacrificed
him, dismembered him, and deluded ourselves into thinking that we were
doing a sacred and righteous thing.

Now, that is all very well for me to say, but what can we do about it?
You and I are not in a position to step in and change the official
policies of the world’s major Christian denominations, are we?
No, but that doesn’t mean that we have no influence or that we
can’t do anything. There are times when we do have the
opportunity to express either unity or disunity, and what we do on
those occasions sends a message to those who are in the positions of
official denominational power. The most dangerous response is always to
say and do nothing, for that communicates compliance - a willingness to
allow the status quo to remain unchallenged. Last Thursday night, we
celebrated the feast of the Ascension by hosting a local ecumenical
worship service - a gathering of three local congregations. Sometimes
at such occasions, a defiant breaking of the laws is the most effective
protest and contribution to unity. We can celebrate the Eucharist
together in defiance of the institutional demands that we not do so. We
didn’t go that way, and I am a believer that sometimes defiant
obedience is even more effective. We prayed a prayer that sounded like
a Eucharistic prayer, and which included these words:

Therefore we gather together in this place
in defiance of the ungracious divisions
that would keep us apart
and deny us the gift of your presence in one another.

And then we shared food and wine together and enjoyed one
another’s company. We lived with the pain of what we could not
do, and named that pain so that it might contribute to the impetus for
healing and renewed unity. Such acts are important. They are a loving
tending of the wounds of our crucified Lord himself.

Unfortunately, the strength of our contribution to this quest for unity
was compromised on Thursday night by our failure to turn up and visibly
enact our unity. We embarrassed ourselves by turning up in
significantly less numbers this year than we had the previous two years
when we hadn’t even had the responsibility of hosting it. And of
the handful of us who were there, half we actually people for whom this
is their second congregation and so, with the exception of those who
are parents of young children, would have had the best excuses for not
being there. At least we exposed the lie of the concept of the
invisible church. Our invisibility contributed nothing!

I don’t want to slide back into one of those old guilt-mongering
sermons, so I am not going to go on about it. My point is to remind you
that everything we do here in the liturgy is symbolic. We listen to
scripture to symbolise our larger immersion of ourselves in scripture
and obedience to its leading. We share bread and wine as a symbol of
our reconciliation and our participation in the glorious messianic
banquet at which our unity will finally be fully realised. We share the
liturgy with other churches from time to time as a symbol of our
participation in a unity which must still be fought for and brought to
visible reality. All of these symbols have meaning only in so far as
they actually express and contribute to a visible reality in our lives.
The visible reality is more important than the symbols, but the symbols
matter because they are a crucial part of the way we proclaim and
foster and bring into being the visible reality. So let’s go on
with symbolising our faith in words and prayers and the breaking of
bread and symbolic acts of unity with the rest of Christ’s
church, so that we might be part of the answer to Christ’s
prayer, that we may be one as God is one. Christ in us and us in
Christ, that we all God’s people may become completely one.